KATLA

Iceland. Yes, Iceland has television. Good television!

Iceland had a volcano eruption years ago that disrupted international travel for weeks. Several of my colleagues at the time were stuck in Cannes because of flight cancellations. In this series, a volcano called Katla has erupted. After one year it still shows no signs of stopping. Most of the town has been evacuated for their safety. There are only police, scientific researchers, and a handful of local residents still in town. Visitors are required to get special permits to enter the town. Ash is in the air at all times and everyone has to wear raincoats and masks to protect themselves whenever they go outside.

One day a woman covered in ash is found on the road and is taken to the local clinic. She remembers little of what happened to her but appears to be perfectly healthy. As she recovers her memory, her account of who she is and what happened to her doesn’t make sense. The police try to work out if a crime has been committed but find no evidence to support that theory. Then, another woman covered in ash is found and the mystery around them both intensifies.

I refuse to spoiler alert this series because I think it will have a bigger impact if you work through the story on your own. I will say that it isn’t a zombie story. The main theme is about how we deal with our past. I found this to be an extremely unique and unexpected presentation on this theme. A true show of originality is rare in television, in my experience. Too often we are presented with stereotypes of people who are flawed but are trying to do good. But this is a deep dive into the self-reflection that is often required to be a better person and truly become capable of “doing good”. Sometimes we think we’re doing the right thing, but we can’t see reality through our own issues to truly see what is the right thing to do. Human beings are flawed and our lives are full of attempts to improve. But this time genuine thought has been put into how the actual process can look.

The director explained in an interview that the series was very personal to him and many of his own experiences had been incorporated into the story. In fact, it was a dream he had that gave him the main idea. There is also an element of Icelandic folklore that I imagine many of us outside of Iceland don’t know much about.

Netflix hasn’t yet announced a second season, but it’s a possibility based on the ending of the first season. It was a tiny bit creepy but I feel confident that season two would find a unique way to explain it and not give me nightmares about zombies.